A Rude Awakening
by WritingReadingLaughing
Summary: Sister-fic. OC POV. Jazebell Curtis was someone who couldn't stand her brother Ponyboy, until that night when he came home late... Written for a school project and felt like posting it here. Complete, please R&R.


**Ok, so this is just a short little story that I had to write for school, as we are reading The Outsiders as a novel study. We had to create a character and then fit them in to the story line somewhere in a maximum of 750 words. Hope that you enjoy this!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own The Outsiders**

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The first thing that I noticed when I woke up was the shouting. The second was the flashing light from my alarm clock, telling me that it was just after two in the morning. I groaned a little and shifted further under the quilt that my mom had made me before she died.

For a while, the fabric kept out most of the noise and I was beginning to doze off before the shouting started up again, and louder than before. Ponyboy's voice drifted through the cracks in the door and I realized that he must have just gotten home.

_Of course… Darry would be furious when he saw the hour. _I thought and I smiled to myself.

I had always had this hatred of my older brother. He was always complaining about how miserable his life was, and unjustly blaming Darry for everything that went wrong. Everyone did. I was the only one who really understood Darry and his point of view. He was the oldest and after our parents died, had had to take over responsibility and provide for the rest of us. Ponyboy just couldn't seem to understand that and was always giving him a hard time.

The volume of the fight was rising, and as I always enjoyed giving my brother a hard time, I slipped my feet in to the pair of slippers by my bed, and shrugged on my bathrobe. The door creaked a little as I opened it, and as I walked down the hall to the stairs, I tied the dressing gown cord around my waist.

Darry and Ponyboy were standing by the door, staring each other down. Sodapop was a couple steps back, giving them both space. I sat down on the third to bottom step of the stairs and began to comb my unruly coal black hair with my fingers, while I waited for them to notice me.

Of course it was Darry who first realized that I was bearing witness to their fight and blamed Ponyboy for disturbing my sleep. The corners of my mouth curled up a little as my oldest brother stood up for me and my youngest sibling tried to defend himself.

"…Didn't mean to!" Darry shouted and I could feel the rage coming off him in waves. "I didn't think! I forgot! That's all I hear out of you! Can't you think of anything? If you had just been home when I told you to be, Jaze wouldn't have been woken up and we all could get some sleep!"

"Darry…" Sodapop began, and I could tell that he was going to intervene, but Darry cut him off sharply, temper as stormy as a night at sea.

"You keep your trap shut! I'm sick and tired of hearin' you stick up for him!" I could see Ponyboy's eyes blaze like fire at the snappy comment directed at Sodapop and open his mouth to defend him. My hands fell to the step I was sitting on, and I pushed myself up and back a little. The tension in the room was unbearable and I knew that it was going to break soon.

"You don't yell at him!"

The loud smack of skin on skin, followed by the thumping of the wooden door, rang loud in my ears. Ponyboy was leaning heavily against the door, hand on his left cheek, breathing heavily. His eyes were almost closed, but underneath the eyelashes, I could see the rage and pain building up inside him, much like a prisoner unjustly convicted.

My eyes went wide and my mouth hung open. Subconsciously, I raised my hand to touch my cheek where Darry had slapped Ponyboy and I could almost feel the tingling in the skin and muscles.

As much as I disliked my brother, our family had always refrained from violence to sort out our problems. Sure, we got angry and shouted, but we had never done physical harm to each other or exchanged blows. Of course, after the deaths of our parents, the tension between us had been growing and it was surprising that this hadn't happened sooner.

I dimly heard the slamming of the front door and Darry screaming my youngest brother's name, but I didn't find out what happened afterwards. I was already up in my bedroom, trying to dim the thoughts that ran through my head and fighting the urge to vomit at what had happened to our, once peaceful, family.

That night, I cried myself to sleep.

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**The End.**

**This will remain as a one-shot because I wrote it for school and don't really feel like adding more to it.**

**It isn't very good, and I probably did a very bad job with my characterization of Ponyboy's little sister, but my teacher was happy with it and so it's ok by my standards. Anyway, I'd like to have a couple of opinions on my first Outsiders story other than the feedback that my teacher gave me, so please review!**

**P.S. I am also writing a poem for school and will post that when my teacher gives me back my mark for any of you interested.**


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